Over the last 15-20 years, changes to policy and practice within child and youth care have arguably constructed barriers to developing and maintaining positive relationships with the young people we work with. The rise of managerialism with its bureaucracy, procedures and rules and the emphasis on risk-averse practice has created many obstacles \u2013 the irony is that many of the developments in process and administrative practice introduced as \u2018safety measures\u2019, or \u2018practice standards\u2019, to protect young people (and staff), have impeded the development of healing relationships \u2013 and arguably have led to practices which have further damaged young people in our care, by denying them access to vital aspects of inter-personal relationships.<\/p>\n
Even our language has changed too \u2013 from the emotive \u2018care\u2019; to the instrumental being \u2018looked after\u2019. But we know we can\u2019t reduce care to instrumental and technical functions \u2013 doing so diminishes us all as workers or young people, as human beings. We know that all the programmes, tools and instrumental techniques won\u2019t work unless they are delivered within the context of positive trusting relationships.<\/p>\n
And more often than not, it\u2019s the relationship itself that is the change agent.<\/p>\n
We know from research<\/a>, and we know from practice<\/a>, from the experience of workers and practitioners and, more importantly, from young people themselves that positive, trusting, supportive relationships, sustained over time, are very often the single most vital component to helping young people heal, grow and move on from earlier painful experiences.<\/p>\n High-quality relationships matter more than anything else for children in or on the edge of care, and for the adults in their lives. We need a care system that places at its heart the quality and continuity of relationships, and that promotes and enhances the ability of those who are important to children \u2013 care givers and others \u2013 to provide the care and support they need.\u00a0 We need to view relationships as the cornerstone of planning and practice<\/p>\n Often forged in a period of significant stress and anxiety it is consistent trusting relationships which can hold things together as the young person moves into a new phase of their lives. Workers and carers should be encouraged, enabled and empowered to maintain contact when they change job, or the child changes placement.<\/p>\n Positive relationships should transcend role, setting and boundary, continuing into adulthood if and as required.<\/p>\n The Children & Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 legislates for the concept of Staying Put. This creates a more enabling context for workers and carers to maintain relationships over time. The Act and guidance has been informed by existing good practice, quietly championed by workers across the country and backed by any amount of research \u2013 there is no justifiable argument that can be maintained which actively undermines young people having access to ongoing positive helping and healing relationships,<\/p>\n Kenny McGhee<\/p>\n Throughcare & Aftercare Lead at the Center for Excellence for Looked After Children in Scotland<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Positive relationships should transcend role, setting and boundary, continuing into adulthood if and as required.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":1142,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":""},"categories":[5791,13506],"tags":[13490],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/relationships-matter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1140"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/relationships-matter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/relationships-matter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/relationships-matter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/relationships-matter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/relationships-matter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/relationships-matter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/relationships-matter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/relationships-matter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/relationships-matter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}